Content Curator Verses the The Community Manager

Finding balance of content and happy audience members within your community is an exceptional feat to achieve. Unique to every online situation and determined by a variety of existing factors the need for fresh information can be overwhelming and at an extensive end of the spectrum actually abrasive to the communities visitors.

The evolving issue is simple. As we build online and the amount of information that accumulates it tends to accumulate at a much faster pace then in the past. This concept addresses a problem humans have never confronted before: too much information in a short amount of time. In the process, it’s creating some compelling new ways to derive value from content and mediate the pulse of the content you put on your site.

An Ideal Dynamic

Quite frequently the content curator takes the role superior to the online community manager, but there is a bigger picture in mind. The curator has to consider more than accurate content, the proper placement of such content and fitting it to an editorial calendar. The curator has to consider the business model and the messaging and the bigger picture. How will the audience view your brand in 1 year – 5 years? Content curators have to construct the best communities for longevity, collect the best content and publish what fits the the value of the community. In addition, he or she needs to poise the content in a polished presentable fashion that pushes site traffic to conversions. Finally, publishing new content in a reasonable time frame without being abrasive to the community audience.

The problem with curation is that it’s labor-intensive. Someone has to sift through all that source information to decide what to keep. This task has never been easy to automate.
The curator has to be able to evaluate the community and the brand from aerial view, with the additional talent to be strategic at a moment’s notice to compensate adverse changes.

Community Manager and Content Creator are two complimentary positions. They are to some extent a symbiotic in nature. Content creators can create within guidelines across many different mediums to match an editorial calendar.

Community Manager’s do exist with some to emphasize on enhancing the User Experience, commenting system, administrative duties, managing new technologies, reporting metrics and implement engagement strategies.

Three positions all cut from a very different cloth all with vital roles to a communities success. Automation is always helpful but not a complete solution to meet the needs of an online community. Several humans are required for success.

Elizabeth Hannan is a seasoned Digital Business Strategist recognized by Inc. Magazine, CBS, Business Journals and others. At Blue Blazing Media she serves as Chief Digital Strategy and User Experience Designer consultant. In 2013, her first book Naked Experience will publish. When not creating content you can find her speaking.

Elizabeth is also the founder of WhenToZen, a community of traveling women entrepreneurs and executives finding healthy life balance and adventure offline.